Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves.
The verse records the invitation of the strange woman in the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart to the young man void of understanding who under cover of darkness went the way to her house, urging him to take his fill of illicit sexual love until the morning and to solace himself with loves. She is not one particular woman but represents a class, associated with the women encountered while seeking pleasure. The offer is deceptive enticement on the path of folly and the downward path of the libertine, a temptation lying in wait at every corner and still present.
It belongs to instruction in the first seven chapters of Proverbs that urges the hearer to accept reproof and choose wisdom, the path of life. Rejecting that instruction leads to spiritual disease and death, and yielding to this enticement turns from virtue to ruin along a path to death, as an ox goes to the slaughter and as a bird hastens to the snare for his life, ending in the horrible fate described in the final verse for those who do not turn back and in long years of bitter remorse.
The plain speaking about this sexual enticement is purposeful to make such sin appear exceeding sinful because it is fatal to the health of soul and body, to warn young men in time to escape the grievous snares about their feet by painting vice and its dreadful consequences in their true colors without making vice attractive and without coarseness. It contains deep philosophy that must be read slowly and thought over, and its instruction ought to take hold upon the hearts of both men and women to warn against the sins condemned there. Parts of the chapter are not well suited to be read in a mixed assembly of men and women.
The verse exposes the moral dangers surrounding girls sent alone to earn a living in great cities, where walking untaught along perilous paths means a single false step can commit them to sexual sin and a life of shame as a prostitute selling herself. Children who will feel the tempestuous force of passion must not be left in dense ignorance to learn the great and sacred functions of the body surreptitiously in vulgar and corrupting forms, and fathers and mothers must give this instruction plainly instead of keeping silent from false modesty. Its appeal to indulge in sexual sin is connected with the landlord's greed in renting property for such purposes. The image of the harlot whose appealing invitation leads to death is applied to morality enforced by political power, beneath whose appealing appearance are war, robbery, murder, hatred, revenge, envy, and division.
The verse records the invitation of the strange woman in the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart to the young man void of understanding who under cover of darkness went the way to her house, urging him to take his fill of illicit sexual love until the morning and to solace himself with loves. She is not one particular woman but represents a class, associated with the women encountered while seeking pleasure. The offer is deceptive enticement on the path of folly and the downward path of the libertine, a temptation lying in wait at every corner and still present.
It belongs to instruction in the first seven chapters of Proverbs that urges the hearer to accept reproof and choose wisdom, the path of life. Rejecting that instruction leads to spiritual disease and death, and yielding to this enticement turns from virtue to ruin along a path to death, as an ox goes to the slaughter and as a bird hastens to the snare for his life, ending in the horrible fate described in the final verse for those who do not turn back and in long years of bitter remorse.
The plain speaking about this sexual enticement is purposeful to make such sin appear exceeding sinful because it is fatal to the health of soul and body, to warn young men in time to escape the grievous snares about their feet by painting vice and its dreadful consequences in their true colors without making vice attractive and without coarseness. It contains deep philosophy that must be read slowly and thought over, and its instruction ought to take hold upon the hearts of both men and women to warn against the sins condemned there. Parts of the chapter are not well suited to be read in a mixed assembly of men and women.
The verse exposes the moral dangers surrounding girls sent alone to earn a living in great cities, where walking untaught along perilous paths means a single false step can commit them to sexual sin and a life of shame as a prostitute selling herself. Children who will feel the tempestuous force of passion must not be left in dense ignorance to learn the great and sacred functions of the body surreptitiously in vulgar and corrupting forms, and fathers and mothers must give this instruction plainly instead of keeping silent from false modesty. Its appeal to indulge in sexual sin is connected with the landlord's greed in renting property for such purposes. The image of the harlot whose appealing invitation leads to death is applied to morality enforced by political power, beneath whose appealing appearance are war, robbery, murder, hatred, revenge, envy, and division.